A 52-year-old Ulhasnagar resident kissed goodbye to Rs 23 lakh over five months after she received calls from fraudsters, pretending to be calling on behalf of the popular game show Kaun Banega Crorepati, hosted by actor Amitabh Bachchan.
A 52-year-old Ulhasnagar resident kissed goodbye to Rs 23 lakh over five months after she received calls from fraudsters, pretending to be calling on behalf of the popular game show Kaun Banega Crorepati, hosted by actor Amitabh Bachchan.
The callers told Jyoti Chandiramani, a housewife, that she had won Rs 1.25 crore. To claim the prize though, the callers told her, she would have to deposit some money in their bank account to take care of taxes and custom charges. The gullible Chandiramani started transferring various amounts of money in several bank accounts as per the callers' instructions since October 2014. Until February, she had altogether made 62 transfers, amounting to Rs 23,08,000.
During this period, she questioned the callers several times about the need to deposit the money when she should instead be getting some. The callers gave her strange reasons, such as the money was required to pay-off anti-corruption officials or to buy sweets for officials. Finally, when the woman lost her patience she started demanding the prize money at which point the callers started avoiding her calls. Eventually, she went to the police on April 3.
"The woman didn't get calls from a number from India. Had she come to the police earlier, she would've saved some money," said MN Satdive, investigation officer at Hill Line police station.
No arrests have been made but a case has been registered against persons identified as Vishal, Iqbal, Anandkumar, Amit Kumar and Vicky Malhotra. "We are going through the details of the bank accounts in which she had deposited the money," said Satdive.
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